The New Pizazz Of Old Orlando City Life Lures Home Buyers Downtown

November 3, 1985|By Joe Kilsheimer of The Sentinel Staff

Some say it's the ambiance of brick-paved streets and moss-draped oaks. Others say it's availability of affordable, well-built houses. Still others give credit to the renaissance of Orlando's central business district.

Whatever the reasons, home buyers are flocking to the old neighborhoods that flank downtown Orlando. While no reliable statistics are available on the number of people moving downtown, Orlando real estate agents say the trend is drawing all types of home buyers: high-paid executives, young couples and move-up buyers.

''People used to be afraid to come downtown, and no one wanted to live near downtown,'' said Jacqueline Sanderson, an Emerson & Herod Realty agent who specializes in downtown properties.

''That's all changed today,'' said Sanderson, an Orlando native who moved downtown eight years ago. ''Now, downtown is the place to be.''

Actually, the residential areas known as downtown neighborhoods were once Orlando's suburbs, bearing such historic names as Delaney Park, Eola Heights and Colonialtown. But today, for those who live and work downtown, the office is a short five-minute car ride away.

''People, I think, are finally tired of that I-4 drive every morning,'' said Stan Alday, a Realtor who has made a specialty of selling downtown residential real estate.

Roughly defined, downtown Orlando's residential housing area is bounded by Colonial Drive on the north, Bumby Avenue on the east, Michigan Street on the south and Orange Avenue on the west. There are pockets of old Orlando outside those boundaries, including the Lake Adair-Lake Ivanhoe neighborhood, northwest of the downtown area, and the Park Lake district, which is bounded by east Marks Street, Colonial Avenue, north Highland Avenue and north Hyer Avenue.

The revival in downtown housing is not limited to Orlando. Dozens of cities including New York, Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Charlotte, N.C., are experiencing new development in their downtown residential districts, according to a recent article in the Journal of Real Estate Development.

''Yuppies, grumpies (grown-up mature people), singles, divorcees, empty nesters, retirees and others are finding downtown living can be much more interesting than life in the suburbs,'' the trade journal said. ''With . . . more exciting in-town housing, shopping and other amenities now available, the resurgence of the urban middle class continues unabated.''

Downtown Orlando has always been a strong market for retirement highrise buildings. Almost all of the retirement highrises, such as Orlando Lutheran Towers and Orlando Central Towers, have waiting lists of up to two years.

The one housing option that the downtown housing boom has left behind is the luxury condominium market. Centre Plaza, an 18-story tower at the corner of Central Boulevard and Eola Drive, was on the market for 1 1/2 years without selling one unit. However, sales have been somewhat stronger at the Reeves House, a midrise condo overlooking Lake Eola. In just over two years on the market, about half of the 40 units have been sold.

According to Thomas Powers, a Fort Lauderdale real estate analyst who has studied Orlando's luxury condominium market, the upscale condos have suffered because their prices -- $110,000 to $480,000 at Centre Plaza -- were aimed at buyers who have shown a preference for living in single-family homes.

In Orlando, as well as in many other cities, the fuel for the downtown residential boom comes largely from the resurgence of the downtown business district. Five years ago, there were about 20,000 who worked in downtown Orlando, said Tom Kohler, executive director of the Downtown Development Board. Today, there are about 30,000. By 1990, there will be about 37,000.

Kohler said the new vitality of the downtown business district and the boom in downtown housing go hand in hand. The board is trying to encourage more people to move downtown by fostering the development of more retail shopping, and by putting more services within easy reach of the old neighborhoods, he said.

But where the thrust in other cities has been on new development in areas where old buildings were razed, in Orlando the focus has centered on buying and preserving existing houses, some of which are a century old. There has been some new residential development, but very little. And because of recent rezoning laws passed by the city, the character of downtown neighborhoods is not likely to change any time soon.

Chalmers Yielding, an Orlando architect who recently bought a 65-year-old ''fixer'' in the Lake Cherokee neighborhood, said people who buy older houses and renovate them get a certain satisfaction about restoring part of the city's history.